Empty Nester Won’t Miss List

With a little over a month left until my son heads off to college, the countdown has really begun. Reality has set in as our guest bed has become a storage unit for dorm necessities. As with other big milestones, the operational mode of getting my son ready for college helps quiet the anxiety for now. I was recently chatting with my father who raised my older sister and myself as a single father (with some guidance from my now step mom) about his experience. He said when my stepmom asked him how he was feeling after I went to college being the last, he said it went according to plan. I got them both to college. He said she asked the same question about 12 times over trying to uncover the real feelings, but my dad kept answering the same. We both chuckled knowing he was also in operational mode and likely too painful to address how he really felt aside from the relief from not having to deal with a typical high school teenager.

While the heartbreak will come soon enough and the end of the daily bedtime hugs (yes, I still make him do this), I thought it would be therapeutic to go through the things I will NOT miss:

• The amount of paper towels he goes through on a daily basis that stresses me out working for a sustainable company

• Interruptions when he gets home from school while I’m in a meeting asking if there’s anything to eat when the fridge and freezer are full

• Mystery colds that only happen in the school year that don’t seem to surface in summer months

• Multiple trips to a grocery store because teenagers eat about 20x a day

• Trying to be on time with a teenager

• Electric, internet, and food bills

• Waiting for something/anything to get done

• Waking up to messy counters after leaving them clean

• Recycling, composting, and garbage never in the right place

• Waiting 45 minutes to get into the bathroom

• The bathroom…

-BT

If you want to hear more on soon to be empty nesters check out our podcast Empty Nest is No Joke podcast.